"Where is Gutongs Fortress?"

Only after Father had completely finished dealing with Old Robert’s corpse did Muen finally ask that question in a low voice.

Before coming here, he had flipped through a lot of materials about demonfolk, but whether it was what he’d looked up himself or the materials Pink Bear had given him, none of them contained any record of the place name “Gutongs Fortress.”

That was normal. Even though the Empire had been at war with demonfolk for hundreds of years, it still knew extremely little about demonfolk as a whole.

After all, most of what demonfolk pushed forward to die were low-ranking demonmen. You couldn’t pry anything useful out of those low-grade demonmen whose intelligence was no different from beasts. And the rare high-ranking demonmen who were captured would, like Old Robert just now, be bound by a blood curse and unable to speak anything too core.

So in these years, most of the Empire’s intelligence on demonfolk came from brave adventurers, or from the military’s suicide scouts—fearless people who went deep into this barren, dangerous land and explored it bit by bit.

You could say that intelligence was written entirely in blood.

But even so, Muen faintly felt that Father seemed to know that name.

Because when Old Robert had spoken it, Father had been far too calm—so calm it was as if those few words coming out of Old Robert’s mouth right then was simply the most natural thing in the world.

"Father?"

"Ah..."

Lorne looked like he was only snapping back from distant thoughts. He looked at Muen kindly.

"What did you say, my good son?"

"I’m asking what kind of place Gutongs Fortress is..."

"Gutongs Fortress... ah, damn it, look at my memory. There’s an important meeting coming up next, and I’m still wasting time here. Those old men are going to nag me again."

Lorne didn’t answer. He slapped his hand in annoyance, stood up quickly, and looked extremely anxious.

His gaze seemed to deliberately avoid Muen as it fell on Ebul instead.

"What are you standing around for? You people, clean this up, then go do what you should be doing. Dolongslei Fortress doesn’t allow idle hands!"

"Y-yes!"

Ebul and the others were completely confused, but they still hurried to move, briskly “cleaning up” a site that had already been cleaned up.

After scratching their heads in distress, a few of them even collected the dirt where Old Robert had spilled liquor, thinking that maybe the Duke would want it analyzed later for poison or something...

Seeing them busy, Lorne finally nodded in satisfaction. One hand stroked his fluffy beard, and the other patted Muen on the shoulder.

"Alright then, son. Your father has things to do, so I’ll go first. You go get some good rest. You just fought a major battle—your body matters most. If there’s anything, we’ll talk after I’m done, alright?"

"But—"

"Ah, those are all little things. We can talk later. Break it up, break it up."

After saying that, Lorne gave Muen absolutely no chance to keep pressing. His figure flashed, and he vanished from Muen’s sight.

Even though Muen was very good at speed... no matter what, he couldn’t possibly catch a Crowned One who had decided, with all his heart, to run away.

"Father... that was way too obvious."

Muen shook his head, quietly sighing that Father’s acting was still as clumsy as ever. No wonder that back home, every time he secretly drank, Mother still caught him.

But precisely because of that, it proved Muen’s guess right now—this Gutongs Fortress really did have something strange about it that Muen didn’t know.

But why would Father be unwilling to tell him something like this? It was just a place name connected to demonfolk. It shouldn’t be something he’d hide from his own son.

If it was some kind of imperial secret... he was practically already the person closest to Her Majesty the Empress. How secret could a mere place name be, that it still had to be hidden from him?

Or was it that what Father wanted to hide wasn’t the place name itself, but something deeper hidden behind that place name?

But it still didn’t make sense why he’d hide it from Muen. It wasn’t like he suspected Muen of being a demonfolk spy.

Muen thought it over for a long time, but still couldn’t find an answer.

And he didn’t know where to get that answer. Because if even the Duke was unwilling to tell him, then inside this fortress, who would dare tell him?

He could interrogate Old Robert, but he didn’t have the standing to go to the true upper echelons of this fortress—the people who actually knew these things—and ask questions wherever he liked.

The gap between “the Duke’s son” and “the real Duke Campbell” was still something you could feel clearly inside this fortress.

It wasn’t something that could be changed just because Duke Campbell doted on him, or because Her Majesty the Empress trusted him.

Because this was the Lion King’s fortress.

"Forget it. Thinking about it is useless. Maybe Father has his own reasons."

After a round of meaningless overthinking, Muen let out ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) a helpless sigh, gathered his thoughts, and prepared to leave as well.

But just as he was about to go, his gaze happened to meet Funal’s.

This busy second-in-command of the fortress still hadn’t left. He stood there, not knowing what he was thinking.

Maybe because his presence was too low, Muen had even forgotten he was still here.

And after noticing Muen’s gaze, Funal didn’t say much. He just smiled slightly at Muen, politely said goodbye, and said,

"Good night, Young Master Muen. I hope you can get some good rest tonight and sleep well."

"Is that so?"

Muen froze for a moment. Then he blinked, smiled back, and said,

"Don’t worry. I killed a demon general. I think tonight I’ll definitely sleep well."

...

...

"Immortality..."

At night, inside the space of consciousness.

Muen stared at those shattered images and thought about what Old Robert had said. He couldn’t help murmuring again.

"Could that kind of thing really be possible?"

In the broad sense, immortality meant never dying, existing forever—life itself as long as that endless river of time.

And for humans, in the narrow sense... did immortality just mean living a very, very long time?

"Like Old Lolita."

A lifespan beyond a thousand years—maybe to ordinary people, that was already basically immortality.

But Muen still didn’t believe demonfolk could do that. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Maybe they really did have some method to extend life, like asking some enthusiastic Evil God from the masses for help... but what was the price?

The price of that immortality was absolutely not something an ordinary person could endure.

"Ah... so annoying. Immortality, and that damned Gutongs Fortress I don’t understand—how did so many mysteries suddenly pile up at once... don’t you think so?"

Muen suddenly asked.

And in front of him, those shattered lights and shadows shifted again. Scattered fragments pieced together into the silhouette of a demonfolk.

Chiheniman.

"So? Can you tell me?"

"..."

Of course, he got no answer, because this Chiheniman was nothing more than a past image read from the Black Book’s records.

And because what remained were only soul fragments, he didn’t even have that spark of life. He was like a puppet with no vitality at all.

But thankfully, even a puppet could still reproduce the moves it had once used.

"Every single one of you loves playing riddles. Don’t you know the second thing I hate most is riddlers?"

Muen suddenly clenched his twin blades and lunged at Chiheniman.

"As for the first thing I hate most, it’s—"

...

...

Muen opened his eyes.

After a fierce battle, he felt like his mental state had improved quite a bit, and his injuries had mostly recovered as well.

"Tap tap tap."

At that moment, he turned his head and heard the promised knocking sound from outside the window.

...

Night was like a sea. Smoke and gunpowder were like a tide.

The gray sky was covered by an even deeper color. The plummeting cold air made the blood on the ground congeal into ice.

But even so, the demonfolk siege hadn’t stopped. If anything, there were signs it was intensifying.

The demonfolk’s million-strong army couldn’t all throw itself at Dolongslei Fortress at once, so they were clearly divided into different waves, day and night, ceaselessly slamming into this last fortress standing on the Empire’s border.

Even so, the scene was still astonishing.

"Young Master Muen doesn’t need to worry. This is only the first day of the siege. We’re still fairly at ease. Nothing will go wrong."

Funal smiled at the side.

On the top of the wall where the two of them stood, there were still many soldiers constantly moving back and forth. These imperial soldiers were also divided into shifts. Right now was the time for rotation, so the scene looked a bit chaotic.

"Mr. Funal, coming out at night—what are you trying to tell me?"

Muen leaned forward and looked down at the demonman corpses piled several meters high beneath the wall.

An arrow grazed past his cheek, but it wasn’t a powerful demonman sniping him—just a stray arrow from who knew where.

On this battlefield, stray arrows were everywhere. Every day, there were always a few unlucky bastards.

"Don’t tell me you dragged me out in the middle of the night to have a heart-to-heart."

Muen joked.

"I would like to have a deeper conversation with Young Master Muen, because in my view, you truly are a very interesting person."

"Interesting..."

Muen’s eyes immediately turned wary. He hugged his arms and took two steps back.

"Don’t tell me, Mr. Funal, you’re also—"

"No, no, no. I’m not some gay man. Young Master Muen, don’t joke like that."

Funal waved his hands helplessly.

"I called Young Master Muen out to answer the question you had in the daytime."

"Oh? Which one?"

"What kind of place Gutongs Fortress is."

So it really was...

Muen’s expression tightened as he listened seriously.

"This Gutongs Fortress—let’s start from two months ago."

Funal raised his head and looked into the distance. His finger lightly tapped the wall.

"Two months ago, a scout we sent to explore the Abyss suddenly sent back a message... He discovered a city in the depths of the Abyss."

"A city?"

"Yes. A city. In such a vast Abyss, having a city isn’t strange. What’s strange is that, according to our past intelligence, the place where that city stood... was originally an empty wilderness with nothing at all."

Funal paused.

"That city was like it appeared out of thin air. In the blink of an eye, it rose from the wilderness—extremely bizarre."

"It is bizarre."

Muen also fell into thought.

"Could it be an intelligence error?"

"We also suspected the scout’s intelligence might be wrong. After all, in the Abyss—where even the range of a sound-transmission stone can be hard to extend beyond ten li—errors like that are very normal. But not long after, we received intelligence from a team of adventurers..."

"They also discovered that city. The city demonfolk call Gutongs Fortress."